Saudis fear more al-Qaeda attacks

Fears were growing last night that the bombing that killed at least 17 people in Saudi Arabia could herald a new wave of attacks by al-Qaeda sympathisers throughout the Middle East.

Anonymous postings on Arabic websites over the past three to four weeks have hinted at "a wave of violence coming on quite a big scale", Saudi dissident Saad al-Fagih said yesterday.

Mr Fagih, who runs the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, added that the postings did not specify Saudi Arabia. "They mentioned big, multiple attacks 'to harm the enemy', as they say," he said.

There was little doubt in Riyadh yesterday that the latest attack was linked to al-Qaeda, but many felt that the bomb's indiscriminate targeting would damage Osama bin Laden's cause. Ordinary Saudis would view the attack as "more revolting than even the May 12 bombings", which killed 35 people, because it came during the holy month of Ramadan, said Khalid al-Maeena, editor of the Saudi daily Arab News.

After the blast, Saudi Arabia vowed that militants would not be able to destabilise it, despite the warning from Washington that al-Qaeda might be planning more attacks.

The world's biggest oil exporter, battling a surge in Islamist violence, said it would hunt down those behind the attack.

"(The attack is) a sign of desperation and not the sign . . . of someone who is going to succeed in upsetting the social balance or the political structure of the country," Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, said.

The former Saudi intelligence chief, describing the compound of mostly Arab expatriate workers as a soft target, said the kingdom had had successes against militants in the past six months. "There have been many arrests, many discoveries of arms caches, munitions and explosives," he said.

Rescue teams were still searching the wreckage more than 24 hours after bombers posing as police blew up their explosives-rigged car in the Muhaya compound in the Saudi capital. As well as the dead, officials said about 120 people were injured, including 36 children.

The US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, who arrived in Riyadh on Sunday, told reporters: "I can't say that last night's attack was the only or the last attack. My view is these al-Qaeda terrorists - and I believe it was al-Qaeda - would prefer to have many such events."

A Saudi security source in Riyadh said the attack was an "al-Qaeda operation".

The attack came just hours after the US had closed its diplomatic missions in the kingdom following what it said was "credible information" that terrorists in Saudi Arabia had "moved from the planning to operational phase of planned attacks".

Simultaneously Britain warned of a high risk that Western targets in neighbouring Bahrain and Qatar could be attacked, as well as a significant risk in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Last week, the US State Department issued a warning of threats to ships and aircraft in the Middle East, including the Red Sea, Gulf, the Arabian peninsula and North Africa.

This was followed on Friday by a statement from the US Homeland Security Department, based on information from "a single source overseas", that al-Qaeda might attempt to hijack a commercial cargo plane.

Although residents of Saudi compounds enjoy a more Westernised lifestyle than is normal in the kingdom, the Muhaya complex had no obvious American connections and its occupants are a mixture of nationalities.